Tennessee AD Dave Hart on SEC expansion: '13 will not be the number'

Two days after SEC commissioner Mike Slive implied more expansion to the conference was unexpected, Tennessee athletic director Mike Hart was signing a different tune.

"I think a lot of the conversation is just where we go from here, obviously, because at some point 13 will not be the number," Hart told The Associated Press. "There are a multitude of components to this that we have yet to really delve into. We will do that in relatively short order, but it's very complex in nature."

The SEC just officially added Texas A&M earlier this week to get to 13 teams, creating some scheduling issues for the 2012-13 season.

That may have just been semantics given Hart's comments. Speculation on the possibility Missouri could be the 14th team has been percolating with the school not committing fully to the Big 12. West Virginia has also been mentioned as a possible candidate.

"I think to say the least, this is and will be a fluid situation for weeks to come, maybe months to come," Hart said." No one can really pinpoint that at this moment, and that's just inherent to the whole conference realignment scenario. ... There are too many variables. People understand to some degree the complexity, but they really don't understand the magnitude of the complexity. It's ongoing in nature."

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